Second Grader Suspended For Holding Pencil Like Gun

FOX 43: A Suffolk school suspended a second grader for pointing a pencil at another student and making gun noises. Seven-year-old Christopher Marshall says he was playing with another student in class Friday, when the teacher at Driver Elementary asked them to stop pointing pencils at each other. “When I asked him about it, he said, ‘Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy,'” said Paul Marshall, the boy’s father. “It’s as simple as that.” Christopher’s father was a Marine for many years. He thinks school leaders overreacted. “A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made,” said Bethanne Bradshaw, a spokesperson for Suffolk Public Schools. The Suffolk school system has a “zero tolerance policy” when it comes to weapons. And, Bradshaw admits, that policy has tightened up in recent years because of widely publicized school shootings.